Dr. Alice Jacobs, CEO of IntelligentMDx, Named Best Entrepreneur in Eighth Annual Stevie® Awards for Women in Business

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 15, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Dr. Alice Jacobs, CEO of IntelligentMDx (IMDx), was named Best Entrepreneur for a non-service business of up to 100 employees in the eighth annual Stevie® Awards for Women in Business this past weekend. The Stevie Awards for Women in Business honor women executives, entrepreneurs, and the companies they run – worldwide. The awards are one of four Stevie Awards programs, which have been hailed as the world's premier business awards.

Dr. Jacobs' entrepreneurial spirit has fueled her passion for finding innovative solutions in healthcare. IMDx was founded out of what she believed was an underserved need in the industry: rapid and effective diagnostics to shrink the turnaround time between a patient presenting with an illness and a prescribed targeted treatment. Her first focus has been on healthcare-associated infections. By creating a company that offers inventive and rapid solutions to healthcare issues, Dr. Jacobs is fulfilling her goal of empowering physicians to make early, intelligent choices regarding patient treatment.

In 2011, IMDx has doubled in size, creating high technology jobs for top talent in the intellectual property, bioinformatics, research and development, project management, and manufacturing fields. Dr. Jacobs personally interviews each candidate to ensure synergy between her team members in order to facilitate the rapid and accurate development of diagnostics, which is the mission of IMDx.

"The broad range of expertise we have here at IMDx is what allows us to rapidly develop innovative diagnostics. It is inspiring to watch IMDx continue to grow and make a worldwide impact on the healthcare industry," says Dr. Jacobs. "It is an honor to be recognized as a Stevie Award Winner."

To date, IMDx has released two CE-marked diagnostic kits, which are being distributed globally by Abbott, targeting two of the most threatening healthcare-associated infections, Clostridium difficile, and vancomycin-resistant enterococci. The IMDx pipeline includes a range of infectious disease assays, a subset of which are currently being distributed globally by Abbott, as well as additional assays targeting oncology, human genetics and companion diagnostics. IMDx's platform-agnostic approach and bioinformatics-driven assay accelerator technology allow the company to play an important role in commercializing a breadth of new products.

More than 1,300 entries – a record for the Stevie Awards – were submitted this year for consideration in 75 categories, including Best Executive, Best Entrepreneur, Best New Company, and Communications Campaign of the Year. Finalists in the competition were chosen by business professionals worldwide during preliminary judging. Members of six final judging committees selected Stevie Award winners from among the Finalists during final judging. More than 200 professionals worldwide participated in the judging process this year.

"Women entrepreneurs and executives continue to innovate, excel, and impress," said Michael Gallagher, president of the Stevie Awards. "Regardless of general economic conditions, the achievements of women-owned and -run organizations around the world remain high, and are reflected in this year's honorees."

Based in Cambridge, MA, IMDx (www.IntelligentMDx.com) is an innovative company that designs, develops and manufactures molecular diagnostic products. IMDx has developed molecular solutions that are clinically impactful and competitively differentiated for a range of disease areas for current and next generation systems, including targets in infectious diseases, oncology and genetics. IMDx's expertise spans evolutionary biology, bioinformatics, microbiology, chemistry and molecular biology. These capabilities are harnessed by IMDx's proprietary bioinformatics and product development processes allowing for the rapid design and development of tests to meet clinical needs.

About the Stevie Awards

Stevie Awards are conferred in four programs: The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at www.stevieawards.com.

Sponsors and supporters of the 8th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business include the Business TalkRadio Network, Coloredge, Infogroup, KeyBank | Key4Women, Melilea International Group of Companies, SDL, and Smart Reader Worldwide.